Social Question

Proxy baptism: How much more disrespectful and idiotic can a person get?

Recently in the news, attention was brought to a Mormon practice called “proxy baptism” which is pretty much converting an already dead someone of another faith to Mormonism to pretty help those people enter heaven. Recent person of proxy baptism interest: Anne Frank.

Frankly, I have more important things to worry about then whether some religious faction believes that performing some ritual on behalf of some long dead relative will up the odds of more of us getting into heaven.

Seems to me there are basically two cases:

1) They are right, in which case I will be grateful that they took the time to proxy baptize some long dead relation.

2) They are totally off base, in which case the proxy baptism really doesn’t make a darned bit of difference here in the real world to me, the long dead relative they baptized, or whatever awaits in the afterlife.

Lordy, lordy lordy. so to speak Could you have been more slanted in your presentation of the Q? Does it matter? In what universe will someone else’s concept of who you should be be more important than your own idea of who you are?

Have you seen the statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? In response to questions about violations of the Church’s proxy baptism policy, the Church issued the following statement:
The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism.

It takes a good deal of deception and manipulation to get an improper submission through the safeguards we have put in place.

While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions, we are committed to taking action against individual abusers by suspending the submitter’s access privileges. We will also consider whether other Church disciplinary action should be taken.

It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention.

I learned about this while working at the local government archives. Mormons would come in and requests lists of names (birth names, veterans’ names, etc.) and baptize them. This was how they could claim that the number of Mormons is growing and growing. So according to them, I could be a Mormon, even though I have never stepped foot in their church.

This ranks somewhere around atheists believing I’m mentally ill for my spiritual beliefs as far as how much it affects me.

I really don’t see what the big deal is. If you were baptized a Catholic, the Catholic church says you’re always a Catholic, no matter what, yet there are tons of people who aren’t Catholic even though they were baptized. But, hey, feel free to keep making a big deal out of it. As they say, there is no such thing as bad press, and this goes for Mormons too! :)

I have to agree with @KatawaGrey on this. It really doesn’t bug me. It just comforts them. Its not like Anne Frank is suddenly going to change. She’s dead. I understand another religion taking offense but more so because its shouting to them that their faith isn’t good enough. But I don’t think they should be offended, but rather contented that they believe this will be her salvation and that they want this for her.
They know it doesn’t make her non jewish. If someone did that for me, I could care less. It would be touching that there are people who pray for me and worry for my salvation, no matter what their faith.
And if they feel empowered a bit by doing this, than so be it.

@Pandora So, you’re saying since she’s dead, she won’t care ‘cause, presumably, she’s not in her Jewish afterlife but the beliefs of some other people in an afterlife takes precedence? That makes no sense.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: Way to completely miss @Pandora‘s point. If I understand correctly and I believe that I do, while you clearly do not, she was saying that it doesn’t matter what all these people think because Anne Frank believed what she believed and a bunch of people with a completely different belief system aren’t going to change that. If there is a Jewish afterlife, that’s where Anne Frank is. She’s not all of a sudden gonna be sucked into a Mormon afterlife because of this. But, hey, any fodder against us believers is good fodder, right? ;)

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Lets take for instant that I were dead and someone wanted to pray for me and make me an honorary Muslim. To any of my relatives with sense they would know that it no more makes me a Muslim. To them they would see it as something for their own purposes or at least for some reason they. I don’t believe just naming and praying for someone of another faith changes who they ever were. Forever, everyone will know Anne Frank as a Jewish girl who was killed in WWII. She will always be a Jewish girl.
If a white man made a black man an honorary white man, would that really mean the man is white.
Besides, I don’t see Heaven as a penthouse apartment. 1st floor Muslims, 2 nd Jewish, 3. Christians, Penthouse Mormons.

@KatawaGreyunclench. no one is victimizing you. all you ever say on these question is the same, about how people think you’re mentally ill for your beliefs…well, I don’t actually think that and you need to just stop making all religious qs about yourself. I was in conversation with @Pandora and don’t need your condescension

@KatawaGreyNo, not everyone else…only you get to christen me or it won’t work…on a serious note, I am totally just talking to you, not lumping you and I know you don’t identify as Christian…but you lump all non-believers as well.

@HungryGuy Why is one considered vandalism and the other inoffensive if it has meaning to people doing it and this particular system (aka religion) also made sense to the dead in question? It’s all about context 101. If I was into golden showers, perhaps you pissing on my grave would be a show of your love or respect. It’s like that.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir and @6rant6 – So okay. Let’s turn this around. Let’s say Rick Santorum finds it offensive that one or the other of you have homosexual sex in some public setting, such as a park or (gasp) a cemetery. I come to your defense and say that as long as you’re not actually vandalizing anything, what you do is harmless and nobody else’s business (even if some segment of the population finds it offensive). Rick, of course, accuses me of being the sole arbiter of what people find offensive. Bleh.

@HungryGuy Wait, but am I trying to have same-sex with his corpse, even if symbolically in order to ‘queer’ him up a bit? No. Another clarification: am I having same-sex (apparently) by a park near his grave? Oh, he’s not dead? Damn.

@HungryGuy So suddenly I feel as if you’re on my side. Not sure if I’m comfortable with that. but you are equating a highly visible, physical act (necropartying) with these hidden Mormon rites done in the bowels of a corporate headquarters somewhere? Right on!

As for Rick Santorum’s outrage, I sould say that at some point, you have to determine who actually has a stake. That’s why I said relatives. I don’t think just any Josiah Doe has a right to see the dead treated as he sees fit. It’s still messy. What if the relatives disagree?

I’d actually prefer a world where we aren’t outraged at either the pissing or the baptizing. But I don’t understand how you can explode at one and condone the other.

As for me, you’re all invited to piss on my corpse. As a matter of fact the only thing I would ask you not to do with my dead body is make me a martyr.

Arrogant is: Presuming to know best for a person who lived their whole life without your help.
Disrespectful is: Going against the dead’s (and the living relatives’) wishes, without regard to how they’d feel about it.

You mean from the original post, @augustlan, that the Mormons are these things? The official statement from the Church said they don’t allow or condone this practice and were not party to the story about Anne Frank. The request for the Church to do this must come from a relative and the request is documented and researched to make sure it is from a relative, according to the Latter Day Saints. I’m just curious if anyone knows what the practice actually entails or if everyone is just jumping on the bandwagon.

@bkcunningham
The details of a specific rape are irrelevant. It is still rape. The rapist using lube on the baseballbat with nails on that special occasion does not make the rape suddenly fine or less reprehensible, so that detail has no bearing on the wrongness of the rape.
In the same way, the precise process of this forced conversion, which it is, does not change the fact that it is a forced conversion and therefore wrong.

What is there to understand? What is it about, @augustlan? I honestly can’t make it any simplier than that. What are you actually talking about that is wrong? Forget it. I am just shocked really that you don’t understand that is seems strange to me that I’m curious to know what you are opposing and you can’t tell me.

@ragingloli, like I said. I know what rape is. What is this that you are against? I’m not defending it, just curious what you are talking about. Apparently, you don’t know.

We have been as clear as we can be, @bkcunningham. What we object to is converting someone without their consent. Since the person is dead, there is no way to get their consent. Everything else is irrelevant.

So you are saying that baptism of the dead is forced conversion? That was my question all along. You both know for a fact that is what this is about, but you have no idea how or why the Mormons do this?

For me, I’m just saying for me personally, I really try to understand things that I may not understand or be familiar with before making judgements. That’s all. I was just wanting a better understanding. It scares me and makes me sad in a way to see people jumping on bandwagons and saying hateful things about people without knowing what is at the core of their beliefs or why they do certain things.

I can’t see how it doesn’t come across as arrogant and I’m trying @bkcunningham. I don’t want to imply it has to do with believing in these things but does it? I’m not sure if you’re a believer so please clarify for me. Is it because you think this is a positive thing that you can’t see it as arrogant? Like they’re trying to do something good, for the person? Also, I don’t think it’s people jumping on bandwagons if a lot of people believe one thing. Do I try to say to homophobes, “you don’t really believe I’m beneath you, you are just jumping on the quite boring and pathetic homophobe bandwagon”, do I?

I honestly don’t know what it involves, @Simone_De_Beauvoir. It seems so foreign to me. I hadn’t heard of it before this question and I’ve been trying to find things to read to understand the who, what, when and where. I went to a play and dinner and came home and read some of the responses and thought perhaps I would just ask what the entire process (I don’t even know if that is the correct word) is about since there were so many comments. Apparently, nobody else knows what it is about either.

I don’t know if it is arrogant, silly, a positive thing, cultish, scary or enlightening. I have no idea what it is and was just hoping someone who had posted comments knew what they were posting about.

@bkcunningham I’ve never heard of it either but I’m in the camp where it literally makes no difference to me what it is since a person didn’t consent. For example, I personally believe all circumcision of infants is wrong even if I know there are many different (well-meaning) reasons and even if I don’t know some others…because, to me, (and I say this as a sociologist who looks at each culture/society in its own right, rather than say something is worse or better) it’s not about the why but about the lack of consent…which I understand to be the central reason why some of us have an issue with this…this concept, however, gets trumped for MANY people by some other idea or belief.

I like to know the why, @Simone_De_Beauvoir. Maybe because I enjoy research and history. I get what you are saying. From what I’ve been reading, the history is very interesting and is giving me a better understanding or at least opening a door to understanding some other aspects of Mormons beliefs and something @jca mentioned with public records. Thanks for the example of circumcision. It gave me a different view in the midst of my frustration and made me see where you are coming from with your opposition.